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A review by fatigue
The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
This is a reluctant 4 stars. It’s not my favourite Didion, it’s not my least favourite. It’s stylistically different, which makes it a bit more of a circuitous read that I largely didn’t enjoy and felt was somewhat contrived.
It’s the early 1980s.
Elena, ex-wife of an oil billionaire, leaves her husband and relocates to the east from Los Angeles. She’s covering the campaign for the Washington Post but on a whim quits to visit her ailing father out in Florida. Her father, not particularly well off, has made some deals with shady people to help get missiles from the US to Costa Rica, the whole Iran-Contra affair. Sell missiles to Iran to fund the rebels in Nicaragua. This last deal her father has made should make him a much-coveted million. Due to his poor health, Elena decides to deliver the arms.
Only, once she lands in Costa Rica she’s stranded. She checks into a hotel but her passport gets stolen and replaced with one with a false identity. She tries to go the the US embassy on July 4 to sort things out, but all that does is flag her in the system and get folks to investigate her as this new passport was never issued by the Miami office. She’s in over her head.
She checks out of the hotel, finds another place, and for the most part just appears to aimlessly exist in this foreign country. She’s aware that there are Bad Guys after her, aware that Bad Guys have lied to her about her father’s death, told her that they are keeping him in the picture when, days later, she reads her obituary in the Miami Herald. She remembers the line someone says about her father no longer being a problem… but what about her?
It’s convoluted, the plot. The plan is to kill a US officer and blame it on Elena (initially her father) which would also allow for things to escalate in the region. CIA black ops.
Elena has no idea who knows what when she interacts with them. Are they part of the plan or not? Do they know her father or not? Do they know she’s her father’s daughter or not? Often — very often — she finds things out only when it’s too late.
Eventually, the assassination target changes to another highly-respected and connected US officer, Treat, who Elena has confided in and who is trying to repatriate Elena to the US through a black channel. The two might even be in a relationship, although that’s developed a bit clumsily. When Treat goes to visit Elena, he’s assassinated by a man in bluff and local police are at hand to kill the assassin: Elena. Only local police have never been at hand at this particular hotel and Elena isn’t actually the assassin despite what the AP reports.
The whole book is somewhat convoluted, somewhat contrived, told in first person, but the narrator isn’t actually part of the story — just researching and reporting the story. She was once friends with Elena back in the Los Angeles days. While, in the end, it does tie nicely together, it’s a bit of a slog in places to read because of the feinting and the baits and switches.
It’s the early 1980s.
Elena, ex-wife of an oil billionaire, leaves her husband and relocates to the east from Los Angeles. She’s covering the campaign for the Washington Post but on a whim quits to visit her ailing father out in Florida. Her father, not particularly well off, has made some deals with shady people to help get missiles from the US to Costa Rica, the whole Iran-Contra affair. Sell missiles to Iran to fund the rebels in Nicaragua. This last deal her father has made should make him a much-coveted million. Due to his poor health, Elena decides to deliver the arms.
Only, once she lands in Costa Rica she’s stranded. She checks into a hotel but her passport gets stolen and replaced with one with a false identity. She tries to go the the US embassy on July 4 to sort things out, but all that does is flag her in the system and get folks to investigate her as this new passport was never issued by the Miami office. She’s in over her head.
She checks out of the hotel, finds another place, and for the most part just appears to aimlessly exist in this foreign country. She’s aware that there are Bad Guys after her, aware that Bad Guys have lied to her about her father’s death, told her that they are keeping him in the picture when, days later, she reads her obituary in the Miami Herald. She remembers the line someone says about her father no longer being a problem… but what about her?
It’s convoluted, the plot. The plan is to kill a US officer and blame it on Elena (initially her father) which would also allow for things to escalate in the region. CIA black ops.
Elena has no idea who knows what when she interacts with them. Are they part of the plan or not? Do they know her father or not? Do they know she’s her father’s daughter or not? Often — very often — she finds things out only when it’s too late.
Eventually, the assassination target changes to another highly-respected and connected US officer, Treat, who Elena has confided in and who is trying to repatriate Elena to the US through a black channel. The two might even be in a relationship, although that’s developed a bit clumsily. When Treat goes to visit Elena, he’s assassinated by a man in bluff and local police are at hand to kill the assassin: Elena. Only local police have never been at hand at this particular hotel and Elena isn’t actually the assassin despite what the AP reports.
The whole book is somewhat convoluted, somewhat contrived, told in first person, but the narrator isn’t actually part of the story — just researching and reporting the story. She was once friends with Elena back in the Los Angeles days. While, in the end, it does tie nicely together, it’s a bit of a slog in places to read because of the feinting and the baits and switches.